Slain BSF jawans cremated with full military honours

TURA, April 22: The fifteen Border Security Force (BSF) jawans, tortured and killed in the hands of Bangladesh Rifles, were yesterday given full military honours in the presence of the BSF Director General (DG), Gurbachan Jagat, at Tura Praharinagar 118 Battalion of BSF. Earlier, a post-mortem was again done by government doctors at Tura. Jagat, while interacting with the jawans, called upon them to be brave and not to be deterred by what Bangladesh had done. He said that the BSF would not be cowed down by such an act perpetrated by Bangladesh. Jagat who was scheduled to leave for Delhi, the same day, will apprise the Prime Minister of all the developments. Highly-placed sources said that the Indian government will be taking up the matter of the torture of the prisoners of war (PoW) with the United Nations. The funeral of all the fifteen slain jawans took place shortly after 4 pm after the completion of the post-mortem. Wreaths were placed in the coffins of the killed jawans an a gun salute was given for them. Among those present for the funeral included the DIG of BSF, the Commandant of 118 Bn SK Zutshi, Commandants of the 172 and 42 Bns, and other officials besides press persons. Out of the fifteen, thirteen were cremated as per Hindu laws while two were buried, inside the camp as per Muslim laws. It may be recalled that the BDR handed over fifteen bodies of the BSF at Mahendraganj border on Friday evening. All had torture marks. The BDR was represented by one Col. Sadiq while Commandants Gursharan Singh and AK Bajapi received the bodies on behalf of the BSF. It was extremely moving to see the completely disfigured corpses of the BSF jawans. Commandant Gursharan Singh was moved and said, "We were the ones who fought and freed Bangladesh from Pakistan and this is what they give us in return. This correspondent who was present at the handing-over ceremony, found that most were beyond recognition and only seven bodies could be identified on the spot. The identified bodies were Deputy Commandant BR Mandol, Sub-inspector Panna Lal, constable H Sheikh, head constable Ramanan Gorah, constable Mafill Udin, constable Shuk Jhandhar, and Sub-inspector Amrik Singh who had both his legs cut and his throat slit. It is stated that eighteen were missing but only fifteen were handed over while one more body and two injured jawans are yet to be handed over. During the handing-over ceremony, the BDR officials handed a document from the Department of Forensic Medicine, Mymensing Medical College, which stated that civilians had handed over fifteen bodies with bullet wounds and all wearing BSF dress except for one who had camouflage uniform. The document further stated that the bodies were handed over on 20th morning and post mortem conducted on them revealed that all died of bullet wounds. However, what has been given by the BDR is not true as another post-mortem done at Tura on Saturday disclosed many things. Firstly, the post-mortem done by government doctors revealed that fourteen bodies were more than three days old. The lone body, that of BR Mondol, was still fresh indicating that he had indeed been killed only on 20th. None of the bodies were burned but had decomposed badly. All the bodies bore torture marks with a number of them having deep cuts indicating that sharp weapons were used. One of the slain jawans had his entire fingers broken, while another had his skull completely smashed indicating that they were bludgeoned. Almost all had broken backs and majority had their throats slit. Another jawan had his thigh chopped while many more had their legs broken. Fourteen of the killed jawans had bullet wounds but one did not have any bullet injury and is believed to have died due to torture.